Another great vine if you have sun is Black Eyed Susan vine...comes in bright orange or yellow , both with black throats. I have one on a pyramid trellis that covers an ugly telephone box, once it gets going it grows and flowers like mad. Have been fighting the rabbits to get it started this year, but if you can get it going up the trellis, they leave it alone after that....

tooslim, that's a great use for a trellis(to cover a phone utility box) Wonder if it can be done for the larger cable and electric boxes? I suppose the trellis can be tipped over without snapping the vines.

Sure, you can cover anything with vines, make a teepee over the larger boxes out of rebar or poles and loop string thru it, if you can't find a premade fixture (if you can follow that description). My phone box/pole is tall, like 28" high or so, the pyramid trellis is about 4 ft tall so it fits right over it kind of like a lighthouse shape. As for tipping it, I haven't had a need to remove it during the growing season (phone hasn't gone out to require servicing! ) but wouldn't care if I had to cut it down, its only an annual and dies back at the first frost. It was darn ugly and had to do something to hide it, my neighbor hit it backing out his driveway the day he moved IN, it leans like the Tower of Pisa and is held closed with black duct tape, OK?? So ANYTHING is an improvement! :-D

I'll be picking brains when y'all come by for the Tour on Saturday, but wanted to shout out for advice from those garden geeks who won't be coming by.

The vines are covering the whole wall now - I added string between the trellises so the vines are now connecting them ....... but ......

So far, only blooms are the dark purple, not a traditional MG blue to be seen and nary a moonflower yet. Since I started these from seed in a planter, I know all three types germinated. Am I just being impatient?

And, as they reach for the sky and run out of trellis they're roping themselves upward w/no support - will snipping these ropes drive strength back down or will it do them in? Any input? TYIA!

Also of note, seems MG/MF foliage is attractive to JBs - rats!

you can trim off the extra, or better yet, just loop it down and back into your trellis, pointing down. it will grow up again. it tends to get top heavy after you do this a bunch of times. if you trim, it just encourages it to send 2 sprouts out from the point you've trimmed- meaning you get 2x as much over the top of your trellis than you had before. i haven't done it, but i wonder if you pinched it good when it got 1/2 way up the trellis if it'd branch and fill in better. you'd probably delay bloom a little, but it could be worth it. it won't kill the plants to trim or pinch.

in my experience the dark purple blue is the 'real' color of mg's, and seems to be the most common and earliest (and what reseeds like crazy). the heavenly blues come a bit later, and moonflowers later still. jb's won't hurt the mgs for long, no worries. they'll bounce back.

Thanks, Tammy - you've confirmed what I'd thought. This is my first time growing these, so please pardon my neediness!

I have been looping the sky-reachers back down, but the potential for top heavy is a concern. Would love to let them climb up over the sunroom, but am not sure how to provide support w/out asking for invasive to the structure problems. Maybe you or somebody on Saturday will have some ideas once you see it.

As for the colors .... yep, I'm just impatient - thanks for all the input !

The one thing I remember reading about vines, especially moon flowers is that the richer the soil or the more you fertilize nearby the more leaves and less flowers you get.
But, it's the lush growth that you want to cover the trellises and the flowers are a lovely bonus.

Thanks, dottie - I am semi-aware of the connection between fertilization and green growth, am just going w/the nutrients in the soil for now. And I'm really chomping at the bit for the first moonflower blooms!

Well, it's been a while now and I've given all I could. None, nada, no moonflowers all season .... vines looked really good thru mid-July, then yellowing leaves thinned out the lower parts of the trellises.

Lots of deep purple MG flowers (mostly tucked up behind leaves in the knotty mess above) and a few blues. Pretty flowers, but the vines got to look really ratty, one more than the other, and now I've discovered a fungus rust - get it all over my hands when thinning the pathetic leaves and it really makes me sneeze. Still no moonflowers. I know the moonflower seeds germinated, they were the biggest, but never produced. Kinda' discouraging.
Sigh.

Not sure what I'll do w/these trellises next year .... but do know I'll have a lot of MG self seeders to contend with.

I have four clematis vines in pots (from my son's garden) - not sure if I want to chance installing them where the MG/MF's failed.

Sorry for your disappointing results with the moon flowers,zigzag.
Someone will come along with an answer based on your yellowing leaves on the lower part of the plants after such good growth.

My moonflowers are not blooming yet. Last year they did not bloom till the end of August and yes the vine itself gets rather nasty looking but I was told that when I bought the starts early in spring. Specifically that the vine gets pretty ratty looking but the flowers were worth the wait. I don't know about the fungus rust but I just recently had to spray one of the safer products on my heuchera that had gotten some rust. Adele

I got to thinking..the late frost then drought then gullywashers here seem to have affected my lantana "Miss Huff". She only sprouted out a couple weeks ago so I guess it's not unusual that other plants are late in blooming too.

Thanks Adele & Dottie - guess I didn't get the memo on late bloom and ratty vines. Would never have embarked on this journey had I known that ahead of time - they were so beautiful earlier in the season - live and learn!

As for the 'fungus rust' - for lack of a better term - I'm just hoping it isn't a soil thing. I was totally unprepared for it, but I can deal w/it now (by ignoring it) but if I do put clematis in place for next year, I sure don't want a pre-existing problem to take them down. Btw, I have staved off powdery mildew on a few other susceptibles w/early applications of Serenade - it's "organic" (I hope), did the trick and no bees or birds were harmed!

Outside of that, my first run out of the chute, I did try the annuals this year - a test run of sorts - and now know I do want something vining there, just something more reliable and perennials get my vote hands down.

Kinda tough - color is of issue (yellow is out) and because the trellises are just off the sunroom, I'm leary of vines that will be heavy bee attractions. (have massive five-leaf-akebias and they are great, but enough is enough!)

I am really looking at relocating the four clematis plants I've been babying all summer - just not sure if they'll do well in this location. Hope so ..... they might just get put there anyway, and I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best !

If you happen to change your mind next year, and still want an annual vine. I think you would like the Purple Bean Vine for the area you are speaking of. It's vine habit isn't like that of the Morning Glory, and is easily removed at the end of the season. Here's a link, just in case ...

Here is a link that might be useful: Hyacinth Bean Vine

My moonflowers haven't bloomed yet either. They will bloom soon though and the smell alone is well worth the wait. I plant mine on a obelisk that has a nelly moser clematis on it. The nelly moser blooms in early spring then yellows and withers, I put the moon flowers at opposite sides of the clematis. It grows up the obelisk and masks the clematis vine. The nelly moser blooms later in the fall also. Although sometimes the moonflower takes over and you won't be able to see the clematis's flowers. That way the obelisk has always got something green on it.

Don't give up on moonflower,zigzag. They should have been blooming in early mid July if memory serves. Mine did beautifully last year on a trellis getting sun from 11 AM to 5PM in an elevated spot that didn't get much water except for rain and competed with a big vitex tree and several other perennials for water.